THE OFFICER by MICHAEL E. BISTRICA
LARA ROSE, 27, a beautiful blonde, upcoming pop singer, career has stalled after a contentious breakup with her Hollywood boyfriend and a poor review in her movie role. Her manager arranges for her to take part in a U.S. Army troop tour to regain the public’s faith. There she meets a single 29-year-old Army captain named EDWARD MADIN, who was mistakenly assigned as her escort.
The two spent almost two weeks together touring several east coast Army bases. The captain insecure around single women his own age maintains a strait-laced professional attitude towards LARA and her assistant. Though the three start off rocky, the tour goes very favorably for LARA and by the end of it she develops an affinity for the young captain.
Sam, her manager, likes the results of the tour tricks LARA into writing EDWARD at his new duty station to continue to develop her image. Through their letter writing LARA and EDWARD develop a closeness that surprises them, and LARA believes she wants to cultivate a romantic relationship. EDWARD assumes she is just being nice because of his help during her tour. Sam develops a plan to welcome EDWARD home with all the public attention Sam can arrange; LARA agrees to go along.
When EDWARD’s return is delayed and his point of arrival changed, Sam’s plan is cancelled as LARA keeps the details of EDWARD’s new schedule to herself. She then devises a scheme to snatch EDWARD for herself. She takes him on a secluded get-a-way hoping something between them can blossom. At the end of their tryst LARA confesses she wants to continue seeing him, but EDWARD attempts to convince her that their lives are worlds apart and they have no chance for a successful relationship. In the end his heart wins out and acquiesces to LARA demand.
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Author Bio:
Michael E Bistrica was born and raised in Youngstown, Ohio, graduated from Ursuline High School (’75) and then attended Youngstown State University where earned a Bachelor of Engineering degree in mechanical engineering. He was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers, served in various staff and command positions in the United States and overseas, and was an ROTC instructor before being deployed to the middle east for Desert Storm. He retired from the US Army in 1996 as a Major. After the army, Bistrica worked as a project manager for an engineering firm and then became the project manager for a general contractor in assisting the building of the Georgia World Congress Phase IV Expansion. He later managed several projects in the state of Georgia and earned his master’s in technology management.
He has been married to his wife Karen for over 34 years and they have one daughter, a granddaughter, and a great-grandson. In his community, he aids in the construction of several Habitat for Humanity houses. In his spare time, Bistrica enjoys reading, astronomy, woodworking, and board and computer war gaming.
FROM THE AUTHOR
First allow me to provide some background on how this book was written. As a student throughout my entire academic career, I was a C+ to B- student when it came to English classes. I had to work hard after graduating college and throughout my career to learn to write adequate military and business correspondence. I am not a writer though I wrote and had an undergraduate thesis published and had two short articles published when in the military. I never had any intention of authoring a book much less a love story. I had no experience in writing a book. I began drafting this book the summer of 2021 having retired in 2020 from my last civilian job.
On the first day I started writing and before I knew it, I wrote between 10,000 to 12,000 words and discovered I enjoyed creating and developing the characters. At one point I was going to delete what I had done and move on. Then for some unknown reason I decided that since I had put such effort into it, I would draft a complete book.
It took over a year to complete because of a busy life with my family. After spending two months doing self-edit, I decided to file a copyright to protect my work. That is where Dorrance Publishing discovered my manuscript and requested a copy. As I had no intention of trying to get it published, I tried to put them off, but they eventually convinced me to send them a copy. It took about nine months from then to THE OFFICER being published in August of 2023.